Published 5:30 am, Thursday, April 15, 2004

The Katy City Council has adopted a new ordinance stating that people with outstanding warrants can no longer use personal checks to pay the police department for municipal court costs or fines.

Katy Court Administrator Elaine Brown said that city law previously required the municipal jail to accept personal checks from those with outstanding warrants. But Municipal Court Judge M.J. "Joe" Dunlap Jr. has not been allowing his court to accept personal checks in such cases.

Brown said that accepting personal checks became a problem for the jail when they were returned for insufficient funds. By then, the warrants had already been removed and had to be reissued, and frequently the subject of the warrant was no longer in Katy, she said.

Brown said the bounced checks were usually for amounts ranging from $300 to $400. The city jail usually received one or two bad checks per month, she said.

The city's ultimate goal is to allow people to use credit cards to make their municipal court payments, Brown said. City officials hope to have that system in place by late summer, she said.

The new ordinance still allows the police department to accept a personal check for fines if no warrant has been issued.

In other business, the council also approved a request for the 24th annual Rice Harvest Festival to be held Oct. 9 and 10. The request includes blocking some downtown streets and setting up some "no parking" areas. The festival will charge $5 admission, with 30 percent of the proceeds going to Project Graduation and 15 percent to the city. The remaining 55 percent will go to the Katy Area Chamber of Commerce, which stages the event.